In this paper an artificial neural network, which realizes a nonlinear adaptive control algorithm, has been applied in a control system of variable speed generating system. The speed is adjusted automatically as a function of load power demand. The controller employs a single layer neural network to estimate the unknown plant nonlinearities online. Optimization of the controller is difficult because the plant is nonlinear and no stationary. Furthermore, it deals with the situation where the plant becomes uncontrollable without any restrictive assumptions. In contrast to previous work [1] on the same subject, the number of neural networks has been reduced to only one network. The number of the neurons in a network structure as well as choosing certain design parameters was specified a priori. The computer test results have been presented to show performance of proposed neural controller.

The paper contains a short literature review on the subject of special type of thin film structures with resistiveswitching memory effect. In the literature, such structures are commonly labeled as "memristors". The word "memristor" originates from two words: "memory" and "resistor". For the first time, the memristor was theoretically described in 1971 by Leon Chua as the 4th fundamental passive electronics element with a non-linear current-voltage behavior. The reported area of potential usage of memristor is enormous. It is predicted that the memristor could find application, for example in the domain of nonvolatile random access memory, flash memory, neuromorphic systems and so forth. However, in spite of the fact that plenty of papers have been published in the subject literature to date, the memristor still behaves as a "mysterious" electronic element. It seems that, one of the important reasons that such structures are not yet in practical use, is unsufficient knowledge of physical phenomena determining occurrence of the switching effect. The present paper contains a literature review of available descriptions of theoretical basis of the memristor structures, used materials, structure configurations and discussion about future prospects and limitations.

Permanent magnet motors are more and more frequently used in various applications. In this group motors with a trapezoidal EMF deserve a special attention. They are characterized by a simple construction, high efficiency and high torque overload. A certain drawback of BLDC motors are difficulties with an operation at a speed above the nominal value. The article presents the results of investigations into the variablestructure electronic commutator designed for the drive of a small electric vehicle equipped with BLDC motors. Such a solution allows extending the standard range of the drive's speed. The considerations contained in the article focus on the possibilities and effects of regeneration mode in the proposed topology of converter. A theoretical analysis has been presented as well as computer simulations carried out by means of Matlab- Simulink, which were then verified at a laboratory. The tests were finished with trias conducted using a small electric vehicle Elipsa.

The paper presents the method of control of an induction squirrel-cage machine supplied by a voltage source converter. The presented idea is based on an innovative method of the voltage source converter control, consisting in direct joining of the motor control system with the voltage source rectifier control system. The combined control system gives good dc-bus voltage stabilization. In the applied control system the limits of the reference variables have been introduced. A correction of the estimated machine load torque is proposed. The new proposed solutions are confirmed by mathematical dependences, simulation and experimental results.

Most of the developing countries economy largely depends on the agriculture. More than half of the population rely on agriculture related activities for their survival. In spite of dependency on agriculture, the technological development of agricultural work in developing country is not comparable to the countries like Australia or Israel. The main reason behind the lack of development is the small size of farms. Such farmers cannot afford expensive technology available in the market due to limited profit margins. The report describes an autonomous fertilization system that takes care of the fertilization requirements of the small scale farms at affordable rates. The system is divided in two parts namely User Interface and Control System. The user interface is designed using the state of the art Raspberry Pi board and a touch screen LCD. The control system is developed using the Arduino platform and can control five fertilizers at a time. The output of the system is the mix of the fertilizer, which is forced into the drip irrigation system of the farm. The system has built in data for the fertilization requirement for important crops and vegetation. The system also facilitates the customize fertilization requirements to be added in the system as per the user requirements.

Temperature change is one of key factors which should be taken into account in logistics during transportation or storage of many types of goods. In this study, a passive UHF RFID-enabled sensor system for elevated temperature (above 58°C) detection has been demonstrated. This system consists of an RFID reader and disposable temperature sensor comprising an UHF antenna, chip and temperature sensitive unit. The UHF antenna was designed and simulated in an IE3D software. The properties of the system were examined depending on the temperature level, type of package which contains the studied objects and the type of antenna substrate.

The article presents the analysis of the simulation test results for three variants of the power electronics used as interface between the power network and superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) with the following parameters: power of 250 kW, current of 500 A DC and voltage of 500 V DC. Three interface topologies were analyzed: two-level AC-DC and DC-DC converters; three-level systems and mixed systems combining a three-level active rectifier and a two-level DC-DC converter. The following criteria were considered: input and output current and voltage distortions, determined as THDi and THDu, power losses in power electronics components; cost of the semiconductor components for each topology and total cost of the interface. Results of the analysis showed that for high-power low-voltage and high-current power electronics systems, the most advantageous solution from a technical and economical perspective is a two-level interface configuration in relation to both AC-DC and DC-DC converters.

The concept of control over electronic transferable records is the central premise of the UNCITRAL Model Law on Transferable Electronic Records. It indicates the method of determining the party who has the rights embodied in the negotiable electronic record. The purpose of this article is to present the most important issues related to documents and instruments that have a circular function in international maritime trade, and the intention to create a legal framework for them when they take the form of electronic records.

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a perfect technique for micro-/nano-object imaging [1] and movement measurement [2, 3] both in high and environmental vacuum conditions and at various temperatures ranging from elevated to low temperatures. In our view, the magnetic field expanding from the pole-piece makes it possible to characterize the behaviour of electromagnetic micro- and nano electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) in which the deflection of the movable part is controlled by the electromagnetic force. What must be determined, however, is the magnetic field expanding from the e-beam column, which is a function of many factors, like working distance (WD), magnification and position of the device in relation to the e-beam column. There are only a few experimental methods for determination of the magnetic field in a scanning electron microscope. In this paper we present a method of the magnetic field determination under the scanning electron column by application of a silicon cantilever magnetometer. The micro-cantilever magnetometer is a silicon micro-fabricated MEMS electromagnetic device integrating a current loop of lithographically defined dimensions. Its stiffness can be calibrated with a precision of 5% by the method described by Majstrzyk et al. [4]. The deflection of the magnetometer cantilever is measured with a scanning electron microscope and thus, through knowing the bias current, it is possible to determine the magnetic field generated by the e-beam column in a defined position and at a defined magnification.

Fault detection and location are important and front-end tasks in assuring the reliability of power electronic circuits. In essence, both tasks can be considered as the classification problem. This paper presents a fast fault classification method for power electronic circuits by using the support vector machine (SVM) as a classifier and the wavelet transform as a feature extraction technique. Using one-against-rest SVM and one-against-one SVM are two general approaches to fault classification in power electronic circuits. However, these methods have a high computational complexity, therefore in this design we employ a directed acyclic graph (DAG) SVM to implement the fault classification. The DAG SVM is close to the one-against-one SVM regarding its classification performance, but it is much faster. Moreover, in the presented approach, the DAG SVM is improved by introducing the method of Knearest neighbours to reduce some computations, so that the classification time can be further reduced. A rectifier and an inverter are demonstrated to prove effectiveness of the presented design.

A simple analog circuit is presented which can play a neuron role in static-model-based neural networks implemented in the form of an integrated circuit. Operating in a transresistance mode it is suited to cooperate with transconductance synapses. As a result, its input signal is a current which is a sum of currents coming from the synapses. Summation of the currents is realized in a node at the neuron input. The circuit has two outputs and provides a step function signal at one output and a linear function one at the other. Activation threshold of the step output can be conveniently controlled by means of a voltage. Having two outputs, the neuron is attractive to be used in networks taking advantage of fuzzy logic. It is built of only five MOS transistors, can operate with very low supply voltages, consumes a very low power when processing the input signals, and no power in the absence of input signals. Simulation as well as experimental results are shown to be in a good agreement with theoretical predictions. The presented results concern a 0.35 1m CMOS process and a prototype fabricated in the framework of Europractice.

The implementation of milk-run in Indonesia has been started since 2005. As a developing

country, there is a challenge to operate milk-run smoothly especially in urban area due to

severe traffic congestion and unfavourable road condition in some areas. This research aimed

to analyze the practice of milk-run operation in one of the biggest Japanese automotive

companies in Indonesia. Transportation Value Stream Mapping (TVSM) is applied in order

to perform just-in-time delivery in the supply chain before operating milk-run. It is discussed

that this company still need to continue in improving milk-run operation. The operation

system needs control and integration from manufacturer, supplier and logistics partner.

The advantage of milk-run operation is cost reduction and also support green logistics in

decreasing emission of carbondioxide (CO2) by reducing the number of trucks used.

The aim of this work was to evaluate the use of the naphthalic anhydride safener on the protection of common bean cultivars BRS-Estilo (carioca) and BRS-Esplendor (black) from negative effects of herbicides. Two experiments were conducted, one for each cultivar in a complete randomized design with five replications, in a 6 × 3 factorial scheme, with six herbicide treatments: bentazon, fluazifop-P + fomesafen, bentazon + imazamox, fomesafen, cloransulam, and control without application, and three naphthalic anhydride treatments: without application, foliar application, and application via seed treatment. Visible injuries at 7, 14 and 21 days after application, photosystem II electron transport rate, and plant dry weight were evaluated. The naphthalic anhydride applied via foliar, and seed treatment reduced significantly the visible injuries in relation to the control when using the herbicides bentazon, fluazifop-P + fomesafen, bentazon + imazamox, and cloransulam. The photosystem II electron transport rate was protected by anhydride applied via foliar and seed treatment when using the herbicides bentazon, fluazifop-P + fomesafen and bentazon + + imazamox. The application of naphthalic anhydride via seed treatment protected the BRS-Estilo and BRS-Esplendor common bean cultivars, with no reductions in the plant dry weight when using the herbicides fluazifop-P + fomesafen, and fomesafen. The use of naphthalic anhydride via seed treatment and foliar application protected BRS-Estilo and BRSEsplendor common bean cultivars, from the negative effects of fluazifop-P + fomesafen and fomesafen herbicides. Thus, this practice has potential to be used in common beans.

In this work we report on fabrication of quantum wires and quantum point contacts from the modulation doped CdMgTe/Cd(Mn)Te structures, with the application of a high-resolution electron-beam lithography. We emphasize on methods which were not yet utilized for these substrate materials. In particular, we describe the so-called shallow-etching approach, which allows for the fabrication of quantum constrictions of a physical width down to 100 nm, which are characterized by the smoother confining potential as compared to the deep-etched devices. For that purpose, a single-line exposure mode of electron-beam lithography has been used. We demonstrate also, how to combine the etching of separating grooves with the thermal evaporation of metal side-gates into a single post-processing stage of a quantum point contact fabrication.

This article is an expanded version of the scientific reports presented at the International Conference on Semiconductor Nanostructures for Optoelectronics and Biosensors 2016 ICSeNOB2016, May 22–25, 2016, Rzeszow, Poland.

In this study, we have developed Sn-Ag alloy by a simple high energy ball milling technique. We have ball-milled the eutectic mixture of Sn and Ag powders for a period of 45 h. The milled powder for 45 h was characterized for particle size and morphology. Microstructural investigations were carried out by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction studies. The melting behavior of 45 h milled powder was studied by differential scanning calorimetry. The resultant crystallite size of the Sn(Ag) solid solution was found to be 85 nm. The melting point of the powder was 213.6oC after 45 h of milling showing depression of ≈6oC in melting point as compared to the existing Sn-3.5Ag alloys. It was also reported that the wettability of the Sn-3.5Ag powder was significantly improved with an increase in milling time up to 45 h due to the nanocrystalline structure of the milled powder.

The electron field and photo-field emission from GaN nanostructures has been analyzed in this review. In order to explain the obtained experimental results, a model was proposed taking into account the change in carrier concentration distribution in the main and the satellite valley during the emission process. The lowering of work function (due to the increased number of carriers in the satellite valley) can explain the decrease in the Fowler-Nordheim plot slope. It was shown that the energy difference between the main and satellite valley in GaN was decreased in the case of quantum confinement, thus increasing the probability of electron transition from Γ to X valley at same electric fields.

Investigations of electron photo-field emission demonstrated that the Fowler–Nordheim plots of the emission current have different slopes for nonilluminated and illuminated devices. A model based on the electron emission from valleys having different specific electron affinities is proposed to explain the experimental results. In the absence of illumination the emission takes place only from the lower valley. Upon UV illumination and presence of a high electric field at the emitter tip, the upper valley of the conduction band appears to be occupied by electrons generated at the valence band.